This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Amazing Stories article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
![]() | Amazing Stories is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | ||||||||||||
![]() | This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on October 13, 2018. | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Current status: Featured article |
![]() | This article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The article mentions that quite a few stories printed in Amazing stories have been republished over the years. What about the other contents of the magazine? Specifically I'd be interested to learn whether the reviews published in the very early issues Strange Adventures have been reprinted anywhere? Or, alternatively, does anyone know whether the old issues of SA have been collected by some libraries, where one can look them up? (I'm searching for the issue of Amazing Stories cover-dated December 1932, which contains a review about a book written by a journalist named Bochow whom I'm interested in with regard to my doctoral thesis). 93.206.41.98 ( talk) 01:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
An infobox was recently added; I don't think it benefits the article, and per User talk:Shortride#Infoboxes for Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories I'm not the only one. I'll leave this notice here for a day to see if anyone else comments before removing it. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:01, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Amazing Stories was published monthly, bimonthly, quarterly and sporadically over its 90 year history. There have been about a dozen publishers and at least four ISDN numbers. It has died and has been resurrected multiple times in the last 30 years. The infobox wants a frequency of publication, a publisher, a first issue, last issue and an ISDN. Amazing Stories is far too complex for that. One of Randykitty complants was the ISDN and OCLC numbers were not found in the article. This information could be added to the text. I am planning to remove the infobox in the next few days. -- SWTPC6800 ( talk) 20:55, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Tell me why the current infobox is so bad for the article... -- Randykitty ( talk) 12:14, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Mike Christie:, why do you keep deleting the infobox? Please stop. Thanks. -- evrik ( talk) 16:42, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
The link to University of Wisconsin–Parkside archives is odd; the collection is offline (so why a specific link?). A few websites do have scanned online versions however:
If anyone finds more sources, please add them here (and or update the main article if it's a comprehensive batch)! -- xensyria T 19:55, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
A search of the US Copyright records show that copyright for "Amazing & 29 other titles" was transferred from Arthur Bernhard & Ultimate Publishing Company, Inc. to TSR Hobbies, Inc. on 11 May 1982. Copyright Document Number V1912P303. This was the latest entry I found. The entire assets of to TSR Hobbies could have been transferred to another party. It was common for writers to maintain an individual copyright on their stories and grant a onetime use to a magazine. Reprints of science fiction magazines would be a copyright nightmare.
The current trademark for "Amazing Stories" is held by Steve J. Davidson, PO Box 1068, Hillsboro, New Hampshire 03244. Serial Number 77422636, Registration Number 4237952, Filing Date March 14, 2008, Registration Date November 6, 2012. The Goods and Services covered are "Electronic publications, namely, periodical magazines featuring fictional pieces, articles, interviews, illustrations, photographs, imagery, animation, digital video, digital audio and other information in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror in popular culture recorded on computer media." And "Publications, namely, periodical magazines featuring fictional pieces, articles, interviews, illustrations, photographs, imagery and other information in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror in popular culture."
A trademark expires if it is not used in commerce for a period of time. Someone else can start using it then register a new trademark. Wizards of the Coast held the trademark from 2003 to 2007 (Serial Number 76534774). -- SWTPC6800 ( talk) 19:28, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
I've reverted the recent changes by an IP to the "Influence on the field" section. The additional material looks reasonable, but it's not sourced, and I don't have my copy of Trillion Year Spree handy to check if it supports it. My recollection is that it does not support the new wording. If we can find a reliable source that gives this opinion we can re-add it. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 02:23, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
The lead was recently cut quite a bit; I've reverted the changes. The edit summary was "Way too much material irrelevant to a lede. Removed stuff like SFWA contract disputes and the like from the start to boil it down to a proper intro." The lead is long, but it's a long article, and I don't think the lead was inappropriately long. The lead should summarize the article, but the cuts removed discussion of most of the publication history. The SFWA dispute led to the loss of two editors, and was a significant event in the life of the magazine. If anyone thinks the lead should be cut let's talk about it, but I'm not convinced -- and it should be mentioned that this is the version of the lead that was in the article when it was promoted to featured status, so there is some consensus behind it. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 18:12, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
EDIT CONFLICT - I've added an infobox (didn't see your comment, sorry) with very rudimentary information - the form has lots of spaces for more info if people see fit, if we want to keep it.
I just removed the infobox and then came here and remembered this discussion. I took it out because it duplicated the picture below, which had a caption pointing out Gernsback's signature; I think that's a nice touch. I suppose it could be combined with the infobox; that didn't occur to me. If someone wants to put it back, I'd suggest including the caption to the existing picture. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:24, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
I'd replace the second and third paragraph of the intro with this:
- DavidWBrooks ( talk) 13:40, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
FlashSheridan (and anyone else interested): I'd like to modify of the recent edits, but having had my first revert undone I'd rather discuss it here first. The changes are:
-- Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:46, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
FlashSheridan: The statement that the magazine was "rarely influential" is cited in the body to Brian Aldiss, Trillion Year Spree, p. 205. I can take a look and pull the original quote tonight. I think the statement is OK as it stands; it says "rarely", not "never", and as far as I'm aware, after about 1930 Amazing was never again a major force. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 19:27, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
A very minor disagreement has come up over a fairly subtle wording change, regarding the sentence "The last issue, March 2005, was distributed only as a PDF download, never as a physical magazine."
It has been edited to say " .... was only distributed as a PDF ...." but that is not really accurate. The "only" modifies "PDF download", because that's the only format in which it was distributed - it doesn't modify the verb "distributed" because this implies that alternative verbs were previously applicable - such as before March 2005 it was distributed and also inflated and ignited, but in March it was only distributed.
As I said, this is very minor and subtle, but I thought I'd give the reasoning here. - DavidWBrooks ( talk) 12:58, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
Davidson, Steve (February 3, 2018). "AMAZING STORIES TO LAUNCH KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN". Experimenter Publishing Company. excerpts:
Turnbow, Gene (February 4, 2018).
""Amazing Stories" Returns to Print If March 1 Kickstarter Succeeds". Krypton Radio.
Conrad T. Pino (
talk) 05:16, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
![]() | This help request has been answered. If you need more help, you can , contact the responding user(s) directly on their user talk page, or consider visiting the Teahouse. |
-- evrik ( talk) 20:55, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
This should be units (copies), not 000's - right? 50,000 000's (as it is now) is fifty millions, is it not? Today it's really unusual today to see such low figures for a long-running pop mag. How could they ever break even? (well, the article says that they mostly didn't, but then how did they survive for all these years...) Retired electrician ( talk) 12:05, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm re-adding "and many others", removed as part of this edit. Ashley says "More major new writers debuted in Amazing or Fantastic in this period than at any other magazine. To consider them in detail would take far too long" and then lists nine writers, some from each of the two magazines. I think this is enough to support the phrase -- without it it's not clear that this was a significant fact about the magazines at the time. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 14:15, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
This article uses the word "bimonthly" several times, but never specifies whether it's using this irritatingly ambiguous word to mean "twice a month" or "every two months", or even if it means the same thing in every case. The tables do provide some clarity, but I think ideally it would be clear from the prose. Can this be clarified? – Arms & Hearts ( talk) 16:57, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Amazing Stories article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
![]() | Amazing Stories is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | ||||||||||||
![]() | This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on October 13, 2018. | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Current status: Featured article |
![]() | This article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The article mentions that quite a few stories printed in Amazing stories have been republished over the years. What about the other contents of the magazine? Specifically I'd be interested to learn whether the reviews published in the very early issues Strange Adventures have been reprinted anywhere? Or, alternatively, does anyone know whether the old issues of SA have been collected by some libraries, where one can look them up? (I'm searching for the issue of Amazing Stories cover-dated December 1932, which contains a review about a book written by a journalist named Bochow whom I'm interested in with regard to my doctoral thesis). 93.206.41.98 ( talk) 01:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
An infobox was recently added; I don't think it benefits the article, and per User talk:Shortride#Infoboxes for Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories I'm not the only one. I'll leave this notice here for a day to see if anyone else comments before removing it. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:01, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Amazing Stories was published monthly, bimonthly, quarterly and sporadically over its 90 year history. There have been about a dozen publishers and at least four ISDN numbers. It has died and has been resurrected multiple times in the last 30 years. The infobox wants a frequency of publication, a publisher, a first issue, last issue and an ISDN. Amazing Stories is far too complex for that. One of Randykitty complants was the ISDN and OCLC numbers were not found in the article. This information could be added to the text. I am planning to remove the infobox in the next few days. -- SWTPC6800 ( talk) 20:55, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Tell me why the current infobox is so bad for the article... -- Randykitty ( talk) 12:14, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
@ Mike Christie:, why do you keep deleting the infobox? Please stop. Thanks. -- evrik ( talk) 16:42, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
The link to University of Wisconsin–Parkside archives is odd; the collection is offline (so why a specific link?). A few websites do have scanned online versions however:
If anyone finds more sources, please add them here (and or update the main article if it's a comprehensive batch)! -- xensyria T 19:55, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
A search of the US Copyright records show that copyright for "Amazing & 29 other titles" was transferred from Arthur Bernhard & Ultimate Publishing Company, Inc. to TSR Hobbies, Inc. on 11 May 1982. Copyright Document Number V1912P303. This was the latest entry I found. The entire assets of to TSR Hobbies could have been transferred to another party. It was common for writers to maintain an individual copyright on their stories and grant a onetime use to a magazine. Reprints of science fiction magazines would be a copyright nightmare.
The current trademark for "Amazing Stories" is held by Steve J. Davidson, PO Box 1068, Hillsboro, New Hampshire 03244. Serial Number 77422636, Registration Number 4237952, Filing Date March 14, 2008, Registration Date November 6, 2012. The Goods and Services covered are "Electronic publications, namely, periodical magazines featuring fictional pieces, articles, interviews, illustrations, photographs, imagery, animation, digital video, digital audio and other information in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror in popular culture recorded on computer media." And "Publications, namely, periodical magazines featuring fictional pieces, articles, interviews, illustrations, photographs, imagery and other information in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror in popular culture."
A trademark expires if it is not used in commerce for a period of time. Someone else can start using it then register a new trademark. Wizards of the Coast held the trademark from 2003 to 2007 (Serial Number 76534774). -- SWTPC6800 ( talk) 19:28, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
I've reverted the recent changes by an IP to the "Influence on the field" section. The additional material looks reasonable, but it's not sourced, and I don't have my copy of Trillion Year Spree handy to check if it supports it. My recollection is that it does not support the new wording. If we can find a reliable source that gives this opinion we can re-add it. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 02:23, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
The lead was recently cut quite a bit; I've reverted the changes. The edit summary was "Way too much material irrelevant to a lede. Removed stuff like SFWA contract disputes and the like from the start to boil it down to a proper intro." The lead is long, but it's a long article, and I don't think the lead was inappropriately long. The lead should summarize the article, but the cuts removed discussion of most of the publication history. The SFWA dispute led to the loss of two editors, and was a significant event in the life of the magazine. If anyone thinks the lead should be cut let's talk about it, but I'm not convinced -- and it should be mentioned that this is the version of the lead that was in the article when it was promoted to featured status, so there is some consensus behind it. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 18:12, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
EDIT CONFLICT - I've added an infobox (didn't see your comment, sorry) with very rudimentary information - the form has lots of spaces for more info if people see fit, if we want to keep it.
I just removed the infobox and then came here and remembered this discussion. I took it out because it duplicated the picture below, which had a caption pointing out Gernsback's signature; I think that's a nice touch. I suppose it could be combined with the infobox; that didn't occur to me. If someone wants to put it back, I'd suggest including the caption to the existing picture. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:24, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
I'd replace the second and third paragraph of the intro with this:
- DavidWBrooks ( talk) 13:40, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
FlashSheridan (and anyone else interested): I'd like to modify of the recent edits, but having had my first revert undone I'd rather discuss it here first. The changes are:
-- Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:46, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
FlashSheridan: The statement that the magazine was "rarely influential" is cited in the body to Brian Aldiss, Trillion Year Spree, p. 205. I can take a look and pull the original quote tonight. I think the statement is OK as it stands; it says "rarely", not "never", and as far as I'm aware, after about 1930 Amazing was never again a major force. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 19:27, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
A very minor disagreement has come up over a fairly subtle wording change, regarding the sentence "The last issue, March 2005, was distributed only as a PDF download, never as a physical magazine."
It has been edited to say " .... was only distributed as a PDF ...." but that is not really accurate. The "only" modifies "PDF download", because that's the only format in which it was distributed - it doesn't modify the verb "distributed" because this implies that alternative verbs were previously applicable - such as before March 2005 it was distributed and also inflated and ignited, but in March it was only distributed.
As I said, this is very minor and subtle, but I thought I'd give the reasoning here. - DavidWBrooks ( talk) 12:58, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
Davidson, Steve (February 3, 2018). "AMAZING STORIES TO LAUNCH KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN". Experimenter Publishing Company. excerpts:
Turnbow, Gene (February 4, 2018).
""Amazing Stories" Returns to Print If March 1 Kickstarter Succeeds". Krypton Radio.
Conrad T. Pino (
talk) 05:16, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
![]() | This help request has been answered. If you need more help, you can , contact the responding user(s) directly on their user talk page, or consider visiting the Teahouse. |
-- evrik ( talk) 20:55, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
This should be units (copies), not 000's - right? 50,000 000's (as it is now) is fifty millions, is it not? Today it's really unusual today to see such low figures for a long-running pop mag. How could they ever break even? (well, the article says that they mostly didn't, but then how did they survive for all these years...) Retired electrician ( talk) 12:05, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm re-adding "and many others", removed as part of this edit. Ashley says "More major new writers debuted in Amazing or Fantastic in this period than at any other magazine. To consider them in detail would take far too long" and then lists nine writers, some from each of the two magazines. I think this is enough to support the phrase -- without it it's not clear that this was a significant fact about the magazines at the time. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 14:15, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
This article uses the word "bimonthly" several times, but never specifies whether it's using this irritatingly ambiguous word to mean "twice a month" or "every two months", or even if it means the same thing in every case. The tables do provide some clarity, but I think ideally it would be clear from the prose. Can this be clarified? – Arms & Hearts ( talk) 16:57, 26 October 2021 (UTC)